Research: Cooperation in energy hubs at business parks leads to substantial additional CO₂ reduction

Research: Cooperation in energy hubs at business parks leads to substantial additional CO₂ reduction

Energy hubs can provide four to six Mton of additional CO₂ reduction by 2030. By working together in a hub, companies can better meet their own sustainability goals, produce more clean electricity and develop more electric logistics charging points.

This article previously appeared at: www.topsectorenergie.nl. Image: stock photo.

This is according to research by Royal HaskoningDHV commissioned by the Dutch Sustainable Energy Association (NVDE) and Programma Verduurzaming Bedrijventerreinen (PVB Netherlands). NVDE chairman Olof van der Gaag and PVB program manager Richard Kleefman conclude: "Working with energy hubs can really make a difference in making business parks more sustainable. Let's get to work on it soon."

Many companies outside our country's five major industrial clusters are currently struggling to reduce their carbon emissions and make their operations more sustainable. They often fail to make big steps because the power grid is "full. Working together in the form of an energy hub then often offers a solution: by coordinating processes and exchanging energy directly, it turns out that much more sustainability is possible with the existing infrastructure.

Advise and engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV estimated that for some 350 larger, energy-intensive business parks alone, an energy hub approach could lead to four to six Mton CO₂ reductions by 2030, or three to four percent compared to our current total emissions. Within an energy hub, for example, they can, in fact, electrify where the limited capacity of the electricity grid currently prevents them from doing so; they can implement more wind and solar energy projects on the site; and logistics centers can develop more electric charging points for their fleets.

The study also identifies what policies are needed to make energy hubs work. This requires a joint sustainability agenda for each business park that does justice to the specific situation. That agenda must also tie in with ongoing regional developments for the rollout of wind and solar energy and plans to strengthen the electricity grid. Finally, companies within energy hubs will need sufficient investment security to do business. This may require national policies. The concretization of this was beyond the scope of the study, but it could include:

• Reward companies that achieve additional carbon reductions in an energy hub, for example in their net rate or a tax;
• Facilitate permitting procedures, for example by combining them;
• Giving companies easier access to information, for example the structure of the electricity grid on their premises;
• A bundled support for energy hubs, rather than through a variety of different small schemes

The Royal HaskoningDHV study is the first indication of the rural impact of energy hubs, based on a number of ways energy hubs can help the transition. Earlier analyses focused on one or a few specific business areas, or on the national effect of one sub-aspect. Impact estimation required several assumptions to be made. Because these assumptions are explicitly stated in the study, we hope to help further the formation of thoughts on this matter.